E-Learning Software Patent Challenged

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has announced that it will re-examine a patent held by e-learning software company, Blackboard, in response to a challenge from a free and open software group, Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC).

The patent, called 'Internet-based education support system and method' was granted to Blackboard in November 2006. It permits only the Washington-based company to sell Web-based software that enables teachers and students to interact outside of the classroom. Blackboard had even filed a lawsuit against rival Desire2Learn, which is scheduled to go to trial in about 13 months.

The SFLC filed its request on behalf of Sakai, Moodle and ATutor, three open source educational software programs, in November 2006. According to Eben Moglen, executive director of the SFLC and professor of law and legal history at Columbia University, there is no room for a monopoly on any part of the educational process in a free society. In order for an invention to receive patent protection, it's supposed to be novel, useful and non-obvious. The SFLC argues the Blackboard patent doesn't meet that standard.

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The Patent Office said in its re-examination order, that the prior art raises substantial new question of patentability. According to SFLC, re-examination requests of this nature typically take two years to complete, and 70 percent result in patents being narrowed or invalidated.

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